Valasca

i am a new rn and will begin my er residency next week (in just a couple dayd. also i have very limited er exp.). i have read through the stickys. my residency is 14 wks long with opportunities to extende per diem. anyway everything seems great on paper and i am really optomistic about working there. unfortunately, i am also terribly terrified!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i cannot believe that people trust me to "be a nurse". to alleivate fears and provide myself a reality check i would like to ask the following of every er nurse: 1. what is the most rewarding thing about being a (new) er nurse? 2. what is the mot difficult thing about being a new er nurse? 3. as a new er nurse; what was the most difficult patient you had to care for and what was their outcome? how did your nursing care contribute the outcome for better or worse. 4. if you could say one thing to a new er rn what would it be? 5. are you willing to support the fledgling new grad? why or why not? many thanks for any replies! Valasca

You will not need your micro book in nursing school I promise!!!!!!! You are going to have sooooooo many books during nursing school that if they all fell on you at once they would probably kill you LOL!!! Besides, in nursing school they build on what you have learned in your pre-reqs, they don't directly reference it (except in obvious cases like with A&P) so no one will be asking you to describe the difference between a prokaryote and eukaryote . You should know your A&P and the "whys" behind things that happen in the body and you should understand acid base from chem but not to the point of doing complex calculations (thank God!). In nursing school it's all about the "why's". Good luck!

I really don't know if there have been studies done on GPA and NCLEX pass rates....I would doubt it. I think competition is what is driving the higher admission GPA's. When nursing schools are getting in excess of 150 applications for 50 or so slots they can pick the best and the brightest applicants. I really think this is the plain and simple answer to your question. However, I would like to add that as a current nursing student I can honestly say that my pre-req's were much easier and much less stressful than nursing school (for many different reasons). So while there probably isn't any correlation between GPA and NCLEX pass rates I feel certain that there is a very strong correlation between GPA and success in nursing school. Chances are pretty good that if you struggled in your pre-reqs you will most assuredly struggle in nursing school. Hope that answers your question.

I suppose they could if they are related to what you have been expected to learn. I have had a couple of instructors do this on occasion (nothing that would make or break you on a quiz/test). Their rational was that we had the tools (based on our current level of knoweldge) to come to the correct conclusion even though we were not directly taught that information. Our ability to choose the correct answer really depended on our ability to think critically. That was the real point of those questions...can you use your critical thinking and what you have learned thus far to pick out the right answer even though I never taught you about this specific problem or the nursing implications associated with it? Hope that helps.

For lecture classes and lab we wear whatever we want. For clinical we wear our ugly white uniform :barf01:. For clinical preperation we wear professional dress clothes. But trust me, your school will cover all of this....probably at length .

Awesome! I am still in nursing school myself but I can tell you that it is even more thrilling when what you are learning starts to "meld" together and you can see that you are thinking critically. That is really exciting and builds confidence to boot. Good luck with your program! :wink2:

So are you asking for ways that nursing theory is not important? Is that what you mean by "the negative side"? Firstly, nursing theory is very important and provides you with the foundation upon which you will build your nursing knowledge and cultivates your critical thinking. If nursing theory was not important and we were only in nursing school to learn skills then nursing school would only be a month or two long. Conversely, being that you are "on the negative side", you could argue that while nursing theory IS important there are areas in which the ideal scenarios that are used in the textbook are irrelevant to real world situations. You could argue that the antiquated notion of ideal situations with an ideal patient and ideal docotors and ideal families and ideal co-workers that is prevelant in nursing theory sets students up for severe shell shock when they actually enter the real world of nursing and perhaps makes them less prepared than they would be had they been taught how to (additionally) deal with less than ideal scenarios.

I have always hated math. For some reason it just never makes any sense to me. I feel your frustration. I cannot do dosage calc using deminsonal analysis....it just doesn't make sense in my brain. I am like you, I never know how to set up the problem. Many people have tried over and over again to teach me dimensional analysis but it never "clicks" in my head. The one way I have found to be really "fool proof" (for me) is the formula 'desired dose/the dose on hand x the quantity'. I know others have mentioned it in previous posts but honestly I can say that if it were not for this formula (and others like it for IV calculations) I would not have passed dosage calc let, alone get a 4.0 in it. The one thing that I do know about math is that there are always multiple ways to solve the problems you just need to explore them and find the way that makes sense to you. Like anything you have to practice to become proficient (sp) but after a little while it should start making sense and you should start noticing that the info you need to solve the problem starts jumping out at you. I hope this helps. Check into the desired dose/dose on hand x qty formula....it has been a life saver for me. Good luck to you.

Just curious why you are asking this question???? ....The students that I have seen struggle and/or fail seem to have one thing in common, they do not study or they study very little. However, the reason why they don't study/study very little has many causes. Most of the people in my school that this applies to usually don't have the time to devote to studying. Typically these are people that have to work full time and/or are single mom's. Do I think less of them? Heck no! I try my best to help them out as much as I can. The students that just don't study because they are lazy I stay far away from. But more often than not the former is the most common scenario. Everyone has different life circumstances going into nursing school...please always remember that.

To expand on what Blove86 said: You know you're in nursing school when you carry flash cards with you in your purse & pull them out while waiting in the drive thru, stop and go traffic, for an oil change, for your next class to start, your doctor to come in and give you your physical............and so on!!!!!!!

I'm sure this has been done before but I figured I'd do it anyway! You know you're in nursing school when...... Your mind is thinking about so many different things that you actually have to stop and make sure you have on all of your clothes before you leave the house!

I would add Imparied gas exchange r/t pneumonia

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you can do "it", whatever "it" may be. It sounds like you are kicking around a few different ideas. My advice would be to contact your local hospital and find out about the possibility of shadowing a nurse, sonographer, and/or medical imaging tech. In my neck of the woods the pre-reqs for all three are pretty similar and vary by only a couple of classes however, the job duties are significantly different. This should help you start identifying what you like and dislike about various health care jobs. I would especially suggest you do this if you have no previous health care experience. I am in my first year of a two year RN program (ADN). I come from a family of nurses. I have no children, I don't work, and I am 25. Personally, I find nursing school to be incredibly challenging, time consuming and stressful. I spend all of my time studying or making care plans or writing papers. I have no life, I rarely see my family, I don't really have time to do anything fun and I have no idea how people can work and/or have kids an be successful in nursing school. That being said, almost everyone in my program works or has kids or both! They are all doing great and most of them are older than me! I think success in nursing school really boils down to two fundamental things, how badly you want "it" and how much you are willing to give up to get "it". I have had several instructors tell my class at different times that the key to succeeding in nursing school is to never quit even when your exhausted and it feels like you can't go one another minute (believe me there are times when you feel just that). I really believe that this is true. When I look back at my first quarter I have no idea how I survived. It was intense, insanely stressful, exhausting, and at times down right depressing. However, it does get better and so long as you keep putting one foot in front of the other you will keep moving forward toward your goal. I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do. I am so glad that I decided to go into nursing and although it is incredibly challenging it is a wonderful journey and one that I am very blessed to be on. And when all else fails and the going gets really tough just remember that age old saying.....nothing worth having ever comes easy. :redpinkhe

I would like to expand on this by adding that I find it annoying when I hear students brag about getting the minimum grade on a test or in a class, or about how they didn't study for a test and still passed. I think that students that cheat and those who are content to scrape by will pay for their slothly (is that a word?) attitude later. I think that students such as these are not looking at the bigger picture. It's not just about getting a good grade or passing a class anymore. We are at a point in which our focus should be on really comprehending the material laid before us, thinking critically about a situation, and then applying said information. I believe that eventually their lack of knowledge will expose them. If somehow they manage to pass their NCLEX (and if they do congrats to them) they still have to "pass" the rigors of residency. I find it surprising how many students in my nursing class have a "i just need to pass" attitude. Now I am no 4.0 student (close but not 4.0) but I study my butt off because I know that at some point I will be entrusted with the life of another human being and I feel that it is my sole duty while in nursing school to learn as much as I possibly can so that I can provide the safe competent care that will be expected of me. Focus on doing the very best you possibly can and know that eventually cheaters will be exposed for what they are.

Hi all! So I recently started an ADN program and I am like "whoa!". There is so much reading to do! I have been trying to keep pace but I am running into a problem that I do not know how to manuver around. My wee little brain cannot retain the massive amounts of information that I am trying to shove into it. I have to have long breaks (like an hour) in between reading new capters so that I can retain the information. On top of that it takes me about an hour to read a chapter (if I want to comprehend it). This really reduces the amount of time I can devote to reading. Oh and I have the hardest time cracking open a textbook right after I get out of class. My brain needs a break from class too...... Right now we do not have any clinical stuff to do (that will be chaning in a week or two) and already I am finding it very hard to manage all the reading. I know once clinicals start I am not going to be able to read 30+ chapters a week. My mental stamina is not very good I guess...... So my question is how do I get around this problem? Are the chapter summaries sufficient enough that I can get by with reading those instead? Should I just trust that lecture will provide the necessary information and forget about the reading? Should I just give up now? I am really starting to freak out now that it has become obvious to me that realistically, I am not going to be able to read all (or even most) of the chapters and do all the other things we have to do. If I could pause time and do all my reading assignments I would....trust me I really want to learn as much as I can...... Anyway, your assistance is needed and greatly appreciated. :heartbeat